Display elements such as liquid crystal display elements have features that include a small size, a small thickness (thin), low power consumption, and a light weight. Because of this, currently, the display elements are widely used in various types of electronic equipments. Drive circuits or thin-film transistors that drive these display elements are generally manufactured using an exposure apparatus referred to as a stepper.
However, the size of liquid crystal display elements, in particular, is becoming ever larger, and because of issues such as manufacturing costs and device transporting limitations and the like, the eighth and subsequent generations of such elements have reached the point where they cannot be manufactured using technology which is simply a scaled-up extension of the conventional technology as too many problems exist. Moreover, in order to reduce manufacturing costs, in addition to improving efficiency by increasing the substrate size, considerable impediments exist such as reducing device costs, reducing running costs, and improving the yield of large size panels.
Moreover, organic EL and field emission displays and the like have also begun to appear in the market, and reducing device costs and reducing running costs are also big problems in the manufacturing of these next generation display elements as well.
Patent document 1 discloses a method in which liquid crystal display elements are manufactured using a flexible substrate in roll shape as a measure to reduce the device costs of liquid crystal display element and running costs.    [Patent document 1] Japanese Patent Publication No. 3698749    [Patent document 2] U.S. Pat. No. 6,320,640    [Patent document 3] U.S. Pat. No. 6,839,123